Thomas x brown



T. E. BRGWN.

HYDRAULIC TRANSMISSION.

APPLICATION FILED NOV. 9. I918.

Patentd Dec. 2, 1919.

2 SHEETS-SHEET I.

' I INVENTOR %mma 562 mm;

T. E. BROWN.

HYDRAULIC TRANSMISSION.

APPLICATIGN F1LD NOV. 9. 1918.

1,323,577., Patented Dec. 2, 1919.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

INVENTOR mamas nn'aown, or NEW YORK, N. Y,

HYDRAdLIC TRANSMISSION.

' Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Dec. 2, 1199199.

Application filed November 9, 1918. Serial No. 251,885,

To all-whom it may concern Bev it known that I, THOMAS E. BROWN, ,a citizen of theUnited States,

dent of the borough of Manhattan, in the city, county,.and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Hydraulic Transmissions, of which the following is aspecification.

This invention'relates to improvements in that class of apparatus in whichthe power of a driving member is transmitted to a driven member by means .of energy imparted to a liquid by the rotation of the driving member, said energy being in turn transmitted to' a driven member and in which the liquid, after havingacted on the driven member, is returned to the driving member and is circulated again and again continuously.

In such machines from the driven member has velocity, and therefore energy and this energy must be conserved and returned to the driving member or great loss of" efficiency and power will result. To conserve this energy of discharge means must be provided to return fthe liquid to the driving 'member in the same direction as the direction of motion of said driving member.

In apparatus of this means employed to turn uid into the direction of the motion of the drlvlng member consists of fixed vanes, i. e. vanes which do not revolve with the machine, and are supported "by a fixed abutment.

The anglesiof such vanes as well as the angles of the moving'vanes are predetermined and not variable, and 'high efliciency 40 is only obtained when driven members revolve the discharge liqat the deslgned speed and speed ratio, and such machines therefore are not well adapted to the propulsion of. vehicles and similar work reqllliiring variable speeds of one or both of t emember's.

Fixed v'anes' complicate the construction and introducefi hydraulic and frictional losses which develop heat, and this compli- 5 cation and-loss is especially great when, as is desirable in many uses, the casing of the machine'revo'lves with'and forms apart of the driving-member.

The

plications avoid undue production of heat and a resiuid from the liquid discharged kind, the usual the driving and principal objectsof my invention are to omit fixed v'anesand their associated comand produce a machine simple. in construction, and also one having adequate means for the return of the liquid to thedriving member and so having high efficiency range of speed variation and therefore a machine suitable for variable speed work.

I accomplish these objects by introducing a vortex chamber around the axis of the machine, into which the discharging liqthe driven member is made to enter in the direction of rotation at high velocity, and in which said liquid; therefore moves in a whirlpool or vortex around the axis of the machine with a rotation in the same direction as the rotation of the driv-f ing member and travels 'toward'said 'driv-l ing member while in whirling motion, and so always enters said member in the direction of the rotation of said member.

By my construction the energy of discharge is conserved and returned to the driving member with a minimum. of loss under all conditions ofspeed of the ma chine and in consequence the torque and efficiency are high over a very wide range of speed variation, and the heating effect is small.

Another object of my invention is to uti-' lize the hydraulic head of the vortex, due to the high speed of rotation of the liquid in the vortex-chamber, and control the rapidity of circulation of the machine by means of this vortex head, and this I accomplish by varying the diameters of the vortex-chamber, z. (2. by tapering the walls of said chamber.

Another object of my invention is to fix the ratios of the outer and inner radii of the vortex, which I do by means of a central core or sleeve.

And still another object is to provide for changes of volume due to variations of temperature which I do by making said core hollow and providing it with perforations.

The purposes and usefulnessof these objects and means will be better understood from the description and drawings.

Referring to the drawings:

Figure 1 is a side view, in partial section, of the preferred form ofthe machine.

ig. 2 is a partial end View or diagram of the driving member as it would appear when looking from the driven shaft endof the machine,

parts being removed,

and torque over a wide energy of the discharge the liquid through the cover and other intervening Fig. 3 is a'similar partial view or diagram of the driven member showing a few of its vanes, intervening parts'being considered removed, or transparent.

Fig. 4 is a side view in partial section, of a form with centrally placed driven'memher. I

Fig. 5 is an end view of the driven member of Fig. t.

Fig. 6 is a sectional diagram of a two stage, or compound, form.

In Figs. 2 and 3, the axis and central core is common to both figures.

Arrows indicate the direction of rotation, and also the direction of flow of the actuating liquid.

Similar reference numbers refer to similar parts in all the-figures.

-Referring to Fig. 1 1- is the driving shaft which may be driven by any suitable means such as a gas engine or electric motor, 2 is the driven shaft and 3 and 4 bearings for these shafts respectively. 5 is a casing, preferably bolted to the flange, 6 of driving shaft 1 so as to rotate with said shaft.

7 is a cover for said casing 5, said cover forming a part of said casing and revolving The mm 8 of said casmg 5 1s prefwith it. erably thickened for convenience in bolting on the cover 7 and also to assist said casing in its action as a fiy wheel.

On the inside of easing 5 and circumferentially disposed around it are vanes 9 and sub vanes9, preferably having a shroud 10, said vanes are attached to and rotate with casing 5 and together with said casing form the driving member 11 which for brevity, I hereinafter call the impeller. The cover 7 is preferably provided with a stuffing box 12, gland 13 and packing 14. 15 is a thrust bearing which may be of any suitable type.

' 16 is a disk which carries the vanes 17 and subvanes 17 preferably provided with shroud 18, the whole constituting the driven member 19 which for brevity, I hereinafter call the runner. Said disk 16 is secured to shaft 2 in any suitable manner as by key 23.

The vanes 9 of the impeller and vanes 17 of the runner terminate at their ends nearest the axis at a considerable distance radially from said axis and form together with said shroud 10, which is carried axially a suitable distance for the purpose, the vortex chamber 20. Said chamber 20 extends pref-' erably the full axial length of the machine, between casing 5 and disk 16.

2-1 is a core, preferabl secured to casing 5, so as to rotate with said casing. Its purpose is to limit the inner radius of the vortex.

Core 21 is preferably made hollow and is provided with perforations 22.

Fig. 2 shows the vanes S) and 9 of the inipeller as they would appear when looked at the principal vanes 17 of the runner, the

sub vanes 17 (Fig. 1) being omitted for clearness. These figures are drawn in this way so the rotations of the members as well as the rotation of the actuating liquid, which with my invention. are always in the same direction, will show in the same direction on the drawing, and as indicated by the arrows.

The principal impeller vanes 9 are preferably approximately tangent at their inner ends to the outer circumference of the g vortex chamber 20 and point against the direction of motion. As they extend outward, they are gradually curved until they become preferably radial at their outer ends.

The principal runner vanes 17, at their 35 outer ends curve in an axial direction, and then inwardly and terminate at the circumference of the vortex chamber 20', and pointing in the direction of motion of the machine.

Only the principle runner vanes are shown in Fig. 3,,to avoid confusion. I

The outer ends of the impeller vanes 9 and 9 and runner vanes 17 and 17 need not differ in any important feature from those of other machines of this class, and it is therefore unnecessary to describe them further.-

The machine is filled with a proper amount of any suitable actuating liquid, 0 such as water or oil, preferably an oil of a high boiling point, and the momentum and energy induced in this liquid are used to convey power from the impeller to the runner.

The operation is as follows:

-When the driving shaft 1 with impeller 11 is rotated by the engine or motor, the vanes 9 and 9 set the liquid in rotary motion and a hydraulic head is created in the actuating liquid which causes said liquid to circulate through the machine in the direction of the arrow Fig. 1. The liquid passes into the runner '19, and reacts on the runner vanes 17 and sets up a torque and causes rotation of the runner, and drives shaft 2.

The actuating liquid is guided through runner 19 by the vanes 17 and inwardly to the vortex chamber 20, which it enters tan gentially in the direction of rotation of the machine at a high velocity and whirls around the core 21 forming a vortex or whirlpool.

I-prefer to give the vanes 17 a direction at their inner ends such that each infiowing stream of liquid will beapproximately tangent to a circle of the mean radius of said vortex chamber.

The vortex motion continues'while said axial direction toward the impeller, and the resultant motion, is spiral or helical as indicated by the long arrow in Fig. 1. This motion is aformof the familiar motion seenin a basin or tub and which a liquid naturally takes when flowing out of a vessel through an orifice, and in which the speed of rotation of every particle of the liquid is approximately the same without regard to its radial distance from the axis of rotation and thus differs from ordinary rotation, in which the speed is proportional to .the radius. 1

The liquid, on traversing the vortexchamber 20, when it reaches impeller 11, enters said impeller in the direction of the motion of said impeller and circulates through the machine over again.

By reference to the arrows in Figs. 2 ani 3, it will be seen that the actuating liqui in its passage from the runner to the impeller always has a motion'of rotation in the direction of the rotation of the machine, and never in the opposite direction.

Said liquid leaves the runner in the direction of rotation of the runner, whirls around in the vortex chamber in the same direction,

7 and enters the impeller in the direction of the rotation of said impeller. momentum in the liquid entering the impeller. does not buck against the impeller and produce counter-torque and consequent loss'of efiiclency.

The use of the vortex chamber, therefore, renders fixed vanes and their associated complicationunnecessary, as the momentum of the liquid, by the use of said chamber remains always in the right direction, .and does not require reversal.

It should benoted particularly that this is substantially true for all ratios of speeds of rotation of the runner and impeller, and the actuating liquid returns its discharge energy to the.impeller at all ratios with a minimum of loss, and high torque and etli-v ciency extend over a. wide range of speed variation.

The vortex chamber 20, has another Valli-- a'ble feature; by its formwe may 'vary the torqueand power of the machine, and modify the torque curve, or curve representing the torque of the machine at various ratios and speeds. The torque of machines of this class 1s 5- 5 ,,dependent on the relative speed of the imrotation, and the"-- counter-ihead set-up in lpeller and runner, and is also-dependent on the rate at which the actuating liquid is circulated through the runner, therefore if this rateis-increased at any speed ratio, the torque will be similarly increased, and if this rate is diminished the torque will be similarly jdiminifshed. The rate of circula- I tion is dependentionl the.. difierences ofhydraulic head setup, in thej'impeller by 1ts Thus the I rate of circulation. The pressure or 'head70 in the vortex chamber is dependent on the square of the velocity of rotation of the liquid in saidJchamber and the logarithm of the ratio of the inner and outer radii of said chamber and therefore is great as compared with the other heads at the same radius and can be made varying the diameter of the core 21, and the diameter of the vortex chamber 20., and thus said vortex head is controllable by the shape and design of said chamber.

-If the outer wall of the vortex chamber 20 is cylindrical or of the same diameter at both ends, the vortex head will be practically equal at the outlet of the runner andthe inlet of the impeller and therefore will not materially influence, the circulation, but if the vortex chamber is larger at the impeller end and smaller at the runner end as shown in Fig. 1, a. greater head will be produced at the impellerentrance than at the'runner exit, and the circulation and torque will be increased, and if the opposite, the circulation and torque will be decreased. These-effects Wlll be flgreatest at the higher ratios; 2'. a. when the di erence of speed of the impeller and -runner are great, and therefore the vortex chamber in addition to its prlmary use in conserving the energy of the liquid discharged from the runner is of great value n regulating the torque vcurve of the machine, and so suiting it to varied uses, Even in an existing machine changes may be made in the torque curve by inserting sleeves in said chamber 20 to vary the radli of said cham-' her, and also by replacing core 21 by cores of other size or form.

A whirlpool or vortex does not extend to the axis, and therefore has a natural core and no artificlal core, such as core'21, is required when the conditions of speed, speed ratio, and load, are constant, but variations of any of these, especially if sudden, cause rapid changes of diameter of said natural core'and in consequence great fluctuations of pressure tending to give an irregular motion t0 the machine, and therefore,I preferto use said core 21 to limit the inner, radius of the vortex.

For the purpose of limiting the inner 1 2,0

radius of the vortex the core 21 could be solid, but I prefer to make it hollow/and with the perforations 22, so that it will form an expansion chamber for the actuating.

vliquid and provide for variations of volume, due to changes of temperature.

Fig. 3 shows a form of machine in which the runner 19 is placed" centrally between two sets of impeller vanes 9 one set attached to casing'5 the other to cover '7, the vortex greater or less bychamber 20 is divided into two parts by the disk 16, which need only be carried outwardly far enough to properly support the runner vanes 17. Said disk 16 may be carried out further if desired. The flow of the actuating liquid is as indicated by the ar-' rows, and the operation is essentially the same as in the' simple machine shown in Fig. 1. The axial flow however is in one direction at oneend of the machine and in the other direction at the other end; hence this form of machine has practically-two vortex chambers. v

Fig. 5 is an end view of the runner of Fig". 4: with front shrouding removed, and shows by the arrowsthe tangential direction of. the liquid entering the vortex chambers.

The form'ofmachine shown in Fig. it has the important advantage that the axial thrusts are substantially balanced.

Flg. 6 1s a sectional diagram showing a t wo stage machine in which the actuating liquid'passes through a set of impeller vanes 9 then through a set of runner vanes 17 and then through an outer vortex chamber 20 to a second set of impeller vanes 9 and then through a second set of runner I vanes 17 to the central vortex chamber 20 'ta'r through which it returns to the first set of impeller vanes 9, as shown by the arrows in the figure. It will be noted that the compounding is accomplished by the use of-two vortex chambers one outside of the other and therefore concentric. This multiple staging can be carried to any desirable extent by the use of a suitable number of concentric vortex chambers.

The essential feature of my invention is the central vortex chamber which may be defined as a chamber through which the actuating liquid after having acted in the runner passes to the impeller with vortex motlon viz; a combined motion of translation along the axis and a simultaneous romotion about the axis. n this class of apparatus, the high efficlency attained by my invention is of the utmost importance in avoiding excessive heat development, as any energy imparte to the actuatin iquid and not utilized as useful work W1 1 be transformed into heat and if the-rate of heat production exceeds the rate at whichsaid heat will radiate into the atmosphere the temperature of the liquid will rlse and soon reach the boiling point and'dangerous pressures or rapid loss of liquid by evaporation will result and the apparatus quickly become inoperative.

Now having describedmy invention what Iclaimisr 1. In a hydraulic transmission containing an actuating liquid, an. axially extended central vortex chamber through which said liquid travels and neans to impartwortex motion'having rotation in the same direction as the direction of rotation of said transmission, to the liquid in said chamber.

2. Ina hydraulic transmisslon, the combinationof an impeller, a runner, an actuating liquid, a casing inclosing said elements tion of rotation of said transmission.

4. The combination in a hydraulic trans-' mission of an impeller, a. runner, a central vortex chamber, an actuating liquid, and vanes on said runner adapted to guide said liquid tangentially into said vortex chamber, and in the direction of the rotation of said transmission.

5. The combination in a hydraulic transmission of an impeller, a runner, an actuat ing liquid, and a central, vortex chamber forming a passage for said liquid from said runner to said impeller, said vortex chamber being of larger diameter at one end than at the other for the purpose described.

6, The combination in a hydraulic transmission of an impeller, a runner, an actuating liquid, and a central vortex chamber forming a passage for said actuating liquid from said runner to said impeller, said vorztex chamber being of larger diameter at said means to guide said liquid tangentially into said chamber, whereby said liquid rotates about theaxis of said transmission, and

forms vortex in its passage from saidrunner to said impeller.

9. The combination in a hydraulic transmission of an impeller, a runner, an actuating liquid, a central chamber, 'vanes adapted to guide said liquid tangentially into said chamber and form a vortex in said chamber and. means to limit the inner radius of said vortex.

10. The combination-in a hydraulic trans mission without fixed abutment vanes, of an impeller, a runner," an actuating liquid, a central passage through wh ch said-liquidispeller and a runner rotatable about a common axis, vanes on said impeller and vanes on said runner, a shroud extended between said vanes, said vanes having inner ends substantially parallel to said axis and distant radially from said axis, forming with said I shroud an axially extended central chamber symmetrical about saidaxis.

12. In a hydraulic transmission, an impeller and a runner rotatable about a common axis, vanes on said impeller and vanes on said runner, both said vanes having inner ends distant radially from said axis and forming a central chamber extending the inside axial length of said transmission and symmetrical about said axis.

13. The combination in a hydraulic transmission of a driving shait, a fluid tight casing secured to and rotatable with said shaft, a runner vinclosed in said casing, vanes on said runner and vanesv on said casing, shrouds on said vanes, and an axially extended central chamber formed by the inner ends of said vanes and said shrouds.

14:. The combination in a hydraulic transmission of a driving shaft, a fluid tight casing secured to and rotatable With said shaft, an actuating liquid and a runner inclosed in said casing, vanes on said runner and vanes on said casing, shrouds on said vanes, an axially extended central chamber formed by the inner ends of said vanes and said shrouds and means to impart rotation always in the direction of the rotation of said transmission to the liquid in said chamber.

THOMAS E. BROWN] 

